Lucky Star owner and Woolworths distance themselves from counterfeit pilchards

Oceana Group, which owns the Lucky Star tinned fish brand, has refuted claims that counterfeit canned pilchards discovered during a police raid in Daleside, Gauteng, last week belong to the company.

In a statement on Tuesday, the group said investigators and third-party experts had confirmed the cans were counterfeit and used an opening mechanism that does not match Lucky Star.

“The labels are counterfeit and we do not use ring-pull lids on our canned pilchards,” it said.

The re-labelled Lucky Star tins were packed in boxes marked “Woolworths Food”.

This is happening amid a nationwide contaminated food crisis, which has seen 890 incidents of food-borne illnesses reported in all provinces since September, with Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal being most affected. 

At least 22 children have died. 

The Citizen reported that a police raid at a Gauteng factory uncovered counterfeit Lucky Star pilchards cans and printing equipment used to alter expiration dates. 

Oceana said that during an onsite inspection evidence, including label printing machines, ring-pull cans and other substances and paraphernalia that are inconsistent with the manufacture of Lucky Star, were found. 

The investigations have established that an international manufacturer produced the canned pilchards under the Woolworths’ brand, according to Oceana. Woolworths imported and received them but later rejected the consignment and asked the supplier to collect it. 

After collection, some of the consignment appears to have been intercepted and illegally relabelled as Lucky Star and repacked into the Woolworths-labelled cartons.

Over the weekend Woolworths released a statement saying it was aware of the police investigation.

“We have strong reason to believe that the product in question may have formed part of an imported shipment from an international supplier that was rejected by Woolworths, as a result of it failing to meet our stringent quality control standards,” Woolworths said.

The retailer explained that in the event of a product being rejected, it becomes the immediate responsibility of the supplier to collect and responsibly dispose of the stock from the Woolworths warehouse. 

“We have launched our own investigation to determine why this process was not adhered to in this instance,” Woolworths said. 

On Tuesday, Oceana advised consumers to identify counterfeit goods by checking the label for print clarity and smudging, whether the label is misaligned and not properly stuck to the can and the ink-jetted “best before” date on the end of the can.